


spoofed the passphrase to your heart

by asynchrony



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hackers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, I mean kind of, M/M, Other, Sawamura Daichi Is Not A Cop, Strangers to Lovers, Trans Sugawara Koushi, daisuga gay, for like thirty seconds, hacker-passing privilege, so everyone is a hacker or hacker-adjacent or hacker-aware, this is an information security conference au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28214034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asynchrony/pseuds/asynchrony
Summary: “Okay, yeah, this looks bad,” Daichi says to the unimpressed cop copying his details over from his passport. “Please don’t deport me.”“No promises,” the officer says, without even looking up.Getting arrested for hacking into a government security system the night before his big debut on the information security stage wasn't really Daichi's plan. Luckily, a new friend helps.
Relationships: Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 17
Kudos: 52





	spoofed the passphrase to your heart

**Author's Note:**

> i promise you do not need to know stuff about tech to follow this fic. if you're at all infosec savvy, you'll probably know where i'm smoothing over the edges lmao.

It’s a typically dreary evening when Daichi’s flight lands, from what the locals have told him. Rain shimmers in the air, so dispersed it’s more fog than droplets; the wind bites at him even through humidity dense enough to be tangible. Despite all of that, the sun’s shining, and there’s a hint of a rainbow across the bay.

Daichi’s choosing to take that as a good omen. _Be gay, do crimes_ , and all that. When the airport bus trundles to a shrieking stop a block from the backpackers’ he’s staying at, he double-checks his Maps app and wrangles his duffel bag out the narrow back door. The distinct sound of steel on steel rings out as his bag hits the rail.

“Sorry! Thank you!” he shouts back at the driver, who gives him a friendly nod before taking off with staggering speed.

Given the weather, the street is surprisingly busy. Following his phone’s color-coded directions to the hostel, he ducks through clusters of teenagers with bubble tea, harried-looking businessmen, and middle-aged women with tiny dogs and reusable coffee cups. The only raincoat or windbreaker in sight is a little spotted yellow coat on a chihuahua.

 _Weird city_ , Daichi thinks. Excitement is beginning to settle in his gut now the airsickness has faded away. _This is going to be fun._

The backpackers’ lobby is also surprisingly busy. Daichi joins the queue to check in, setting his bag down with a thump. The person in front of him turns, their sweet smile growing wider as they survey him. Daichi fights a blush.

“Ah, sorry if that was loud. I’m Daichi.”

“People call me Suga. And not at all!” They heft the hiking pack resting against their knee. It clanks, perhaps more loudly than Daichi’s had. “I might be wrong, but I take it you’re here for Hackercon?”

“Actually, yes.” Oh, what a relief. “Is this your first time?”

“Nah. I’m from up north, so it’s not far. I catch the sleeper bus down every year. It’s your first time, though, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Daichi says, sheepish. “Is it that obvious?”

Suga chuckles, bright and warm. Behind them, whoever’s currently at the counter is dissolving into cursing so deeply inflected with the local twang that Daichi can barely recognize it as offensive. The receptionist seems entirely unphased.

“You’re not dressed for the weather, at least not the way people here do.” Tilts their head. “It might be the use of color, actually. Very stereotypical hacker.”

“I’m wearing all black, like half the city!”

“Are you?”

Ah. At first glance, he’d thought they were pretty much dressed the same. Suga’s in an oversized linen shirt, the black faded and textured with wear, skinny jeans, and heavy lace-up boots; the hems of their shirtsleeves skim across their palms, thumbs passed through the slit before the cuff button.

Daichi’s also in a black button-down and jeans, but his sneakers have orange soles and laces. His backpack is piped in white and fluorescent orange, the lining of his leather jacket a more sedate rust.

“It’s… my favorite color?”

“I can tell, Daichi.”

The increasingly creative swearing dies down, its creator escorted to the door. “Next,” the blonde at the front desk calls.

There’s two spaces at the counter, as it turns out, so Daichi makes his way up as well. The other receptionist looks up at him, then at Suga, who’s just collecting their keycard.

“Oh, sorry, are you together?”

Before all the blood in Daichi’s body can migrate to his face, Suga’s nudging him amiably. “We might be, we don’t know yet! What did you book?”

“Uh, a bunk in a shared four-bed room?” He’s got the reservation pulled up on his phone, so he passes that over.

“Perfect. Put us in the same room, please,” Suga tells the front desk, then takes both their bags and starts heading for the elevator.

When they get there, they turn and beam at a still-bewildered Daichi. “We’re friends now,” Suga yells across the lobby, and steps in.

* * *

Suga and Daichi, as it turns out, have the room to themselves tonight unless anyone checks in in the next hour. They’ve claimed one bunk bed each, and the bottom bunk on Suga’s side is barely visible under an explosion of striped socks and spools of cable and carabiners heavy with USB devices.

The beds are rickety, especially for someone with Daichi’s build, so he’s decided on the bottom bunk himself. Emptying his backpack onto the top bunk, he settles cross-legged on the floor with the contents of his duffel bag.

“You’re a physical pentester, then,” Suga says when they stop back in, towelling off their hair and surveying the floor with renewed interest. “Not what I would have expected. Though I guess it makes sense, with a body like that, that you’d be all about breaking and entering.”

Daichi can feel his cheeks heat up.

“That’s what you do, right? Physical… penetration?” Suga settles on Daichi’s bottom bunk and shoots him a wink that makes him stammer. It takes him a moment to put his thoughts back together.

“N…nothing like what you’re imagining, probably. Just RFID stuff. Y’know, like this.” He nods at Suga’s keycard, still loose in their grip. “I’m doing one of the talks on the main track tomorrow afternoon, and I haven’t finished it yet.” Ducks his head. “It’s my first talk, too. I’m nervous.”

“Aw,” Suga murmurs. “I’m sorry for flustering you. You’re easy to wind up, but that’s probably not useful right now.” They shift down to the floor opposite Daichi. “Well! Give me the summary, then. I’ll be your test audience.”

It takes a while for Daichi to get started. As he moves through his outline, he can see from Suga’s face that it’s not going well. His talk’s technical by nature—it all relies on the various RFID card formats and specifications, and while its value is obvious, keeping an audience’s interest is going to be hard.

“I’m sorry. This is gonna suck. Ugh.” Daichi buries his head in his hands.

“Don’t be like that. I think… the implications of what you’ve figured out are pretty huge. This applies to pretty much every hotel or office building that uses this kind of system, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve just got to find some examples that’ll capture the interest of a broader audience, that’s all. The content’s all there.”

That makes sense. “Thanks, Suga.” Daichi lifts his head and offers them a tired smile.

“Any time. Do you think you’ve got an idea what to do now?”

“I do, yeah.” It’s slowly forming in his head. He packs some of his gear and his laptop into his backpack, slipping a hoodie on and tucking his keycard into its pocket. “I think I need some dinner first, though.”

“Sounds like a plan. Hey, take my number? Just in case you lock yourself out, or something.”

Suga writes their number on his hand with a marker they've conjured up from somewhere, then waves him out the door.

On the ground floor, Daichi takes a deep breath as the doors slide open. The night air is tepid, salt sweeping in on the breeze from the waterfront just out of sight. He knows what he has to do.

* * *

It takes Daichi maybe half an hour to familiarize himself with the part of the city he's in. Further in from the waterfront, it's largely corporate buildings with government offices pepper-potted in between, getting more dense as he walks uphill. Most businesses around here seem to use low-frequency access control, judging by the make of their electronic locks. _Boring,_ Daichi thinks. There's nothing exciting he can do with those. He keeps his hands firmly planted in his pockets, strolling along at what he hopes is a casual pace.

By chance, he spots a high-frequency keycard system he recognizes. It's on the barred entrance to a government office, some kind of social services program. Daichi hesitates, then tests his hostel keycard. It doesn't unlock, of course, but the sequence of lights in response tells him all he needs to know: they're using the default encryption key. It's no work at all to pull out his Thinkpad, hook up his homemade RFID spoofer, and transmit the right sequence to disarm the security system. Of course, he rearms it after, moving right along.

Daichi's onto his sixth government RFID access system when he runs into trouble. This one is a little different. He's at what looks to be the District Court, and the encryption key on the staff entrance isn't the default for once.

“Interesting,” Daichi mumbles, squatting so he can better tinker with his makeshift toolkit. There might still be a way in, here. It's too late for any staffers to be out and about so he can clone their cards, but—

The sound of a dozen hurried sets of footsteps, a blinding light, and he's surrounded by police.

“I can explain,” Daichi begins.

“No, son, you can't. C'mon now. Up, hand that over.”

Daichi sighs. “Yeah, okay.”

* * *

It sucks. The police take his RFID spoofer, which is fine and reasonable given the circumstances, but they also take his laptop and his phone, for good measure.

“My slides are on there,” Daichi protests plaintively, after he's been hauled into the station. “I need them for my presentation tomorrow.” It's nearly tomorrow, really.

“It's cute that that's still what you're most worried about," the processing officer says. She's copying his details over from his passport, looking entirely disinterested.

Oh. Oh no. “Okay, yeah, I get it, this looks bad. Please don’t deport me.”

“No promises,” the other officer present says, without even looking up from the contents of Daichi's backpack. Panic is bubbling up in his gut and making his head spin.

“Do I at least get a phone call?”

The ponytailed cop snaps his passport shut. “You get this back,” she says. “No call back home is gonna do you any good.”

God, he really is going to get deported. He's going to be banned from travelling, and he'll get fired, and his life is going to be over. Daichi scrambles for anything that might help. “I have a life here,” he manages, then winces at how tragic and fake that sounds.

The officer sighs. “What, like a partner or something? Fine. Go ahead, call her. You know her number?”

Uh. Hm. “Yeah,” he says. Time to improvise. “Got it here.” He offers the back of his hand up, and she squints at it. “That's a local number all right,” she concedes, nodding to the phone across the room. “You have five minutes.”

Daichi's hands are shaky as he punches in Suga's number and presses the headset to his ear. He feels like he's about to pass out. The phone rings once, twice.

“Sugawara Koushi, what's up?”

Relief rushes over Daichi, swift and dizzying. “Suga,” he says. “It's Daichi. I got arrested, they said they'd let me call my partner, I didn't know what else to do—”

“Okay, okay, slow down. Which station are you at?”

“The central city headquarters, I think.”

“Good, that's not too far. Lemme guess. You decided to get some hands-on experience for your talk?”

Daichi grimaces. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“I'll be on my way as soon as I can. Did you want anything from what you've got here?”

“I don't think so... I never did have dinner, though.”

“Okay, I can do that. Hey. It'll be all right. We'll sort this out. See you in fifteen, yeah?”

“Yeah, see you,” Daichi breathes, and Suga hangs up.

* * *

True to their word, Suga appears just before midnight.

“I'm here for Sawamura Daichi,” he hears them say at the front desk. They sound a little out of breath.

“You're his...”

“Long-distance partner, yes.” Their voice softens. “Dai is a bit of an idiot, y'know? But if you need any information about what he was doing, I'm happy to answer what I can. He might've mentioned the information security convention we're both attending. I'm an expert in the field as well.”

The officer at the front desk snorts, but his colleague hums. “That would be useful. Right this way,” she says, and then they're both gone.

Daichi's lost track of time when Suga's led to his holding cell.

“Suga,” he croaks, struggling to standing.

“Hey, darling.” Their smile is equal parts bemused and worried.

The processing officer unlocks the cell, pressing his backpack back into his hands. It's a lot lighter than it was, but it's a comfort to have all the same. “You're free to go. Don't try that again, or you _might_ get deported next time.”

“I'll make sure he doesn't,” Suga says, pressing their hand to their heart. “Scout's honor.”

“Or you could have better taste in men,” she says. “You're both at this address for the next four days, right? We'll be in touch if we need anything else. Notify us before you leave the city.”

“We will,” Suga nods, and hurries Daichi out.

The moment they've turned the corner, Suga guides Daichi to the nearest bench. He collapses onto it.

“Oh. Wow. I'm still shaking, huh?”

“Yeah.” Suga settles next to him, rummaging through their tote bag. “Here. It should still be warm, hopefully.”

Daichi unrolls the paper bag to find a box of boneless fried chicken. It's still warm enough to be fragrant, and the scent goes straight to his stomach.

When he's done inhaling the chicken, Suga hands him a napkin, then a bottle of water.

“How are you feeling?”

Daichi drinks deep, then swallows. “A little more human, I think. Thank you. For everything.”

“I wasn't about to abandon you to the cops.” Their smile is tentative. “You'll have to tell me about what happened, later. For now, how does bed sound?”

“So good, you have no idea.”

“C'mon, then.”

* * *

The next morning passes by all too quickly. The con starts with flamethrowers _inside_ the conference center, then a keynote by someone hacking luxury motorbikes onstage to turn on their engines with nothing more than a clunky old laptop like Daichi's own. By the time they make their way out for the midmorning break, attendees cheering the presenter who reverse engineered the Lime app and used it to figure out where Lime was launching and trace every scooter in the world, Daichi's wondering how his boring proposal got accepted.

He says as much to Suga, who just laughs. “You don't think your story's going to be just as good?”

“My story? _Oh._ ”

“There you go." Suga guides him through the throng of people with a hand pressed to his back, and over to the cluster of food trucks a block away. “Don't you think they'll love your recent hijinks?”

“It's kinda embarrassing, isn't it?”

“Only if you let it be, really. You've seen it already today, a good sense of humor about these things is something that's hugely endearing. Plus you did what you intended to do, right? You figured out how to get people interested.”

“I suppose. I don't have another computer with me, though, so there won't be any visuals.”

“Oh, I can lend you my tablet. It might end up looking a bit like a kid did it in Microsoft Paint, but that adds to the charm, I think.”

“I can't thank you enough, really.” Something's niggling at the back of Daichi's mind. “Though... how did you get my surname? For the cops, I mean.”

“I looked you up on the con schedule? I mean, you were all but asking me to fake-date you, I needed to know enough to play the part.”

Daichi groans. “Between that and the grilling it sounds like you got from the cops, I owe you too many favours to ever pay you back.”

“There's plenty of time,” Suga says. “Coffee all con's on you. You _are_ lucky I remembered enough of your talk to convince them you didn't mean to set off their alarms, though.”

“I really am glad I met you,” Daichi says, a little too sincere.

Suga studies him for a moment, then beams. “Me too.”

* * *

Daichi spends the next few hours out in the overflow room where the talks are being livestreamed, hunched over Suga's tablet. When the room empties out during the lunch break, Suga presses a coffee and a sandwich into his hands, then looks over his slides.

“That's perfect,” they say. “Add some more hacker stock images. You really did look like that one.”

“I've only known you for a day, and I already know there's no point in arguing,” Daichi says, obediently pasting the image in and adding a caption in Comic Sans.

“Damn right.”

Waiting in the wings after lunch, Daichi's less nervous than he thought he'd be. _Everything's already gone wrong in basically every way it can_ , he thinks. _Time to turn things around._

When he's introduced, the emcee blinks at her notes. “The title for this talk on the paper programs is _Fake it till you make it: Physical Access Control strategies_ , but the presenter's requested the subtitle be changed to _How I nearly got deported for international espionage_." She grins. “Now that's a story I'd like to hear! Please welcome Sawamura Daichi, one of our up-and-coming international guests new to the con circuit.”

Daichi steps out into the blinding lights and applause of a full convention center, and dazzles them in turn with his smile.

* * *

The talk goes as well as Daichi could have dreamed. His clumsy slides, complete with finger-drawn illustrations of his various escapades, are universally adored; the actual science of what he's done isn't lost on the physical security experts present.

The emcee compliments his speaking style afterward. “You engaged with the crowd a lot better than most first-time speakers, too! A lot of them don't look up at all, but you kept your gaze moving.”

Daichi thinks of the silver hair he was searching for, and pinks a little. “I'm glad I made such a good impression,” he says.

Suga's waiting right by the green room when Daichi leaves, holding a ludicrously bright bouquet of daffodils.

“Trade you for my tablet,” they say. Then, breaking into an impossibly wide smile, “That was amazing, Dai. For real.”

Sleep-deprived and full of adrenaline, Daichi throws himself into their arms.

“Thank you.” His voice is thick with tears he hadn't noticed.

Cautiously, Suga's hands come up to hold him, cellophane crinkling against his back. They stand there for a moment, breathing in sync.

* * *

Daichi and Suga both head back to the hostel early, opting out of that night's Capture The Flag challenge. Daichi's exhausted from fielding press enquiries and offers from tech attorneys all afternoon, and Suga seems unwilling to, in their words, leave him unsupervised.

“Who knows, maybe next time you'll be trying to be the next Guy Fawkes.” They stretch a little, catlike, on their top bunk, reading glasses low on their nose, flicking through a notebook. The reading lamp they've clipped to the bedframe casts the room in a gentle orange glow.

“Explosives? That seems a bit old-fashioned. More suited to someone who takes notes at a tech con in a paper notebook, perhaps.”

“Fair enough. It's just the easiest way to keep things away from my students, believe it or not. Lots of geniuses, none inclined toward physical pentesting or anything like that. Or maybe they just know they'll get in trouble for sure if they steal a teacher's possessions.”

“Wait, you teach tech?”

“At high school level, yeah. I love coming to these cons, and some years I get to take my best students if they get a scholarship.”

Daichi blinks. “You told the cops you were an infosec expert!”

Suga laughs. “Come to enough of these cons and anyone can pass for an infosec expert, to the general public. Besides, I also told them I was your partner!”

That brings the heat right back to Daichi's face, though he chooses to blame the humidity. “You were an excellent partner,” he says. He's glad Suga can't see him.

He can hear them smile. In just over twenty-four hours, he's learnt their face well enough that he can picture it, too, fond and amused. “Anything for you, darling.”

* * *

It takes Daichi the rest of the conference, shadowing Suga and watching them charm CEOs and shy white-hat teens alike, to work up the courage to solicit any more of their time than he's already taken up.

They introduce him to all their friends, too, and to the city: he finds himself in a different bar every night, sharing craft beer and shockingly good food with a rambunctious bunch who all seem to have ridiculous hair.

“The final day ends with an afterparty,” Suga says. “It's usually a bit useless for networking, but that's why everyone says they're there, anyway. Did you want to go? I'll see if someone has a spare phone, maybe, since it'll get hard to find each other in there while you still don't have one.”

“Or I could just not leave your side,” Daichi says. “Though. Maybe I could treat you to dinner instead? Just the two of us. As a thank you, I mean.”

“Daichi.” Suga's uncharacteristically serious, scanning his face. “As a thank you, or as a date?”

Daichi thinks about stepping out onstage for the first time, and takes a fortifying breath. “Both,” he says, meeting Suga's eyes. “If you'll have me.”

Every single one of Suga's smiles has taken Daichi's breath away, but this one might be his favorite.

**Author's Note:**

> in my head, suga introduces daichi to their students as a guest during his next visit a few months on, and subsequently never knows peace again once a whole bunch of high schoolers figure out that technically lockpicking is also hacking, if you're getting into a server room
> 
> i can't believe i wrote this during one work day on a whim bc half the twitter daisugaists were brainstorming daichi careers? what is my life
> 
> let me know what you think! as always, i'm on twitter as [@emdashing](https://twitter.com/emdashing). this fic's corny graphic can be [seen and retweeted here](https://twitter.com/emdashing/status/1341115002816667649).


End file.
